


The Harvest Season

by bmouse



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon Cardassia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 21:27:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1580114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmouse/pseuds/bmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Cardassia even the flowers have secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a prompt on tumblr. Archival crosspost.

Against expectations he has a good crop that spring. Only half the flowers have been pollinated but those not swelling and becoming fruit defiantly remain. There is some terrible metaphor there for declining fertility rates but this evening he is not mean-spirited enough to make it. 

Soft and fleshy, the petals bruise easily and leave lavender streaks on his fingers. In his eyes, eyes that are still hungrily noticing every minute detail, the flowers suddenly look like a hybrid of two Earth-native ones that Keiko O’Brien once pointed out as also edible. 

Their names are filed away in a seldom-accessed place in his memory now. All Human-related things are. Perhaps that information has even degraded slightly, he has not had a chance to review it.

Surely the Doctor could enlighten him. It would be a good technical exercise, wouldn’t it? To send a single picture with no explanation to a remote medical console on Deep Space Nine. 

Ah but they have their best color in the mornings.

Alas a government official’s salary does not stretch quite far enough to move all the stones that need moving. There are rebuilding proposals that cannot fail, orphan informants to pay off, another old woman who had been kind to Mila and is now caring for an invalid veteran daughter. 

Of course he gets by. It is a better test of his survival skills than punching meal numbers into the machines of the Replimat. There is the garden and the sea, roots to prune back and boil, quick fish to eviscerate ( avoiding the toxin-heavy liver ). Luckily he has the bone structure to still remain impressive without much of the stored fat. Would he be difficult to recognize without it?

Speaking of, sunset has come upon him. Supper is due. For some foolish reason he leaves one bush untouched, harvests the rest into sealing canisters, puts a handful of petals into a wooden bowl and chews very slowly.


	2. Chapter 2

It almost looks like a normal flower, well one that’s been pumped full of air a bit. He’s never seen a lotus/chrysanthemum hybrid that’s quite so three dimensional, or so teal. Curiosity of the first order compels him to crouch down and pick up a fallen petal. The texture is more like aloe-leaf actually. A quick motion followed by a flick of the wrist and a scalpel from his field kit is in his hand. 

He lays the patient flat on the surface of his palm and makes a lateral incision. Ah there’s the truth of the matter: the insides are a little cathedral of fibrous strands housing a soft cotton-like filling and toothy rows of pale white seeds. They also bleed profusely. 

Garak materializes behind him just as he’s sucking the juice off his fingers. His expression speaks volumes.

"Yes. Yes, I’m an idiot who runs around on another planet just licking things. Please tell me it’s not poisonous." 

“Quite edible, actually. Best when fried but raw will do for the undiscerning palate.” His tone transforms the insult into an endearment.

Permission granted he pops the damning evidence into his mouth and bites down decisively. Further chewing reveals a flavor like a marriage of tamarind and mint. With a heavy hint of metallic dirt. Oh, right. His own fault for picking it off the ground, but it seemed cruel to cut a fresh petal. He swallows quickly. 

Garak’s face betrays a profound enjoyment of his one man performance.

"Hmm, not bad!" he says, relishing a rare opportunity to be both diplomatic and accurate "Could do with a bit of sauce."

He turns back to the bush. "Though I think I’d rather leave them blooming.”

'Me too.' Garak says with the tilt of his head, with the way he steps forward to run a knuckle over the petals. A certain knowing gleam is in his eyes when he looks at the flower, as if the two of them share a secret. His friend will never be first in line to verbalize the truth but here on his native soil he gives himself greater permission to express it. 

"Next year you should see more of them." 

There. There’s the clue. It rings through his mind clearly received through one of his few fully-functional social sensors, built over seven years and painstakingly calibrated to this one man. Under his full attention the bush is verdant and blooming, but it is the only one. All the others in the row have been carefully pruned and also look healthy but they have neither flowers nor fruit. Only translucent arrowhead-shaped leaves.

Those leaves are familiar.. oh! he’s seen them before: on roadsides and in scorched public parks. But Garak’s garden is the first place he’s seen the blooms. Why is that? He realizes it just in time to turn his face away, to pretend he’s looking at the sunset. 

Commonplace, palatable, filling - a perfect famine food.

His face still shows everything, so he’s learned the value of angling it away. Pity would be neither mannerly nor welcome but that isn’t quite the word for what he’s feeling. 

He sneaks a glance at Garak out of the corner of his eyes. His friend has never looked less safe, less human, and more self-possessed Their time apart has removed the obsequious shopkeeper’s bow from his posture and revealed the thick but graceful bones in his wrist.

_I wish I could have saved you from this._

But that’s just more of his typical arrogance, isn’t it. Still, he’s here now.

And damn right we’ll see more of them next year he thinks fiercely. He may be a transplant but even foreign doctors are too precious to be exploited. They pay him a fair wage at the Healing Center. He can buy lennet and marrow-bones, mapa bread and vat-grown zabu meat. 

Garak may not know it yet but he is never eating another bloody flower ever again.

-


End file.
